


The Run and Return

by justsomerain



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Post LA, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2003523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomerain/pseuds/justsomerain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days there’s nothing she’d rather do than wring Clint Barton’s neck with her own bare hands. He was a pathetic excuse for a human being, with no sense of how actual people dealt with their emotions, and most importantly, their baggage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Run and Return

Some days there’s nothing she’d rather do than wring Clint Barton’s neck with her own bare hands. He was a pathetic excuse for a human being, with no sense of how actual people dealt with their emotions, and most importantly, their baggage.

Other days, and these were more rare, she took pity on him. Clint Barton’s life was maybe best comparable to a wild ride of shit. She knew enough about psychology to know that even the most balanced person wouldn’t be balanced anymore after all the things he had gone through.

Most of the time though, she didn’t know how to feel about Clint at all.

The whole mentor/mentee thing had never really been their thing. Partners, maybe. That would be accurate, but she spent as much time in Clint’s dingy Bed-Stuy flat as she did at home. She had left him behind in New York while she left for LA with their - his dog, and the amount of her stuff that had been at Clint’s was so much that maybe partners wasn’t the right word for it.

Her own reaction hadn't been entirely rational, if she was honest with herself. Driving from New York to Chicago in one go, after leaving? Not the healthy, balanced response to leaving your strictly platonic “I don’t want to have sex with you” sort of partner guy. The rest of her journey to LA had been in saner proportions, but that first leg of her escape had been a strange combination of frantic “I need to get away from here” and a feeling of relief mixed with sadness.

It had all taken a bit of a back seat upon arrival in LA, and she had worked hard to get back, harder than you probably should, trying to get out of Los Angeles, but she’d managed it, alive, if bruised and battered, her nerves frayed to bits. And the Clint Barton she had returned to (with their dog) had not fared well in her absence.

He spoke different, volume not completely accurate, over-emphasising. Where usually he’d turn away from her, Clint looked at her lips, deciphering her words by reading what she said. It wasn’t long before they fell in the pattern they had been in before she had left, Clint feeling sorry for himself, trying to warn her away from him, without even taking in what she told him.

Kate Bishop took no shit from anyone, and especially not from Clint Barton, human trainwreck. LA had allowed her to figure out what they were, and no self-deprecating asshole was going to chase her away.

She made her way over to him, shaking her head. She hadn’t planned on this, she had been sure her return would have resulted in exasperated sighs, and awkward silences, and not like this. Kate pulled Clint down by his shirt, to her height, kissing him, before taking a step back, and spoke, looking him in the eyes, making sure to enunciate clearly.

“You’re not getting rid of me, Hawkeye.”

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to Choctopus for proofreading my ridiculous fics.


End file.
